Secretary of State Rice lands in Iraq and in her speech makes the following claim:
"The United States, along with the rest of the free world, believed somehow for a number of years that people in this region didn't care about freedom," she said. "We cared about stability. And what we got was neither. We got a malignancy that was growing that came to haunt us on the fine September day" in 2001.
I'm sorry, Ms. Rice, but the events of 9/11/2001 do not serve as to absolve the Bush Administration's deeds universally. You can make a reasonably solid case for invading Afghanistan as a result of 9/11, but it's a might bit of a reach to make the same claim about Iraq. The story justifying Iraq has changed so many times that one has to presume that any such story is largely a fiction concocted based on what you think well "sell" in the media.
Since then, the world has been subjected to the tawdry spectacles of Abu Ghraib, Maher Arar's Extradition to Syria, and the shadowy accusations being made about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Is it any wonder that the Muslim world grabs onto claims of desecration of the Qu'ran? True or false, those allegations are taking on a life of their own in the Middle East, and may well become widely held "truth", regardless of the facts.
After the complete failure of American forces to find anything like "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq, it is extremely difficult to believe any assertion that Iraq has anything to do with the so-called "War on Terror" (Originally dubbed a Crusade by Dubya - before his handlers got ahold of it)
I agree with recent commentators on Iraq about one thing - the rightness or wrongness of the invasion is not the issue of the moment. The issue now is how will the United States extricate itself from the mess in that country, and leave the Iraqi people to their own destinies? On the other hand, the actions of the US government into the forseeable future have to be weighed in light of past actions. The world is understandably nervous about the actions of the US, given both past actions and the continued insistence on justifying every action - no matter how noxious - in terms of 9/11 is past its "sell before" date.
A little intellectual honesty from the Bush Administration would go a long ways to beginning to rebuild the image of the United States on the world stage.
3 comments:
American Sitcoms were often based on lies and how the characters kept digging themselves in deeper and deeper. If someone would have told the truth at any point in the show, then entire plot would have fallen apart. (Three's Company, as an example). I usually changed channels within minutes.
The frightening thing is that I have just equated US foreign policy with a sitcom. But I cannot change worlds.
The Bungle Lord
"That's My Bush" anyone?
http://imdb.com/title/tt0268077/
Quixote
http://www.livejournal.com/users/quixote317/
I see now that Newsweek has recanted on their story, the Bush administration wonks are busy pretending to indignant outrage.
One has to wonder if it's the outrage of someone who was almost - but not quite - caught out.
Considering that former GITMO prisoners have made similar accusations, one has to wonder.
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